Pacific College of Oriental Medicine Alumni

To have peace in one's soul is the greatest happiness. - Oriental Wisdom

Practice Building

Continuing Ed
Pacific Symposium
Additional CEU Events
CEU Tapes

Alumni events

Alumni Profiles

Oriental Medicine News

Update Your Info

Alumni Email List

Request Records

Download Graduate Exit Interview

Alumni Minutes

Classifieds
Jobs
Opportunities
Office Space
For Sale

Does Chinese Medicine Have a Role in the 21st Century?

By Z’ev Rosenberg, L.Ac., Dipl.Ac.,FNAAOM

Chinese medicine finds itself in a unique position as we enter the millennium. A growing profession in the West, Chinese medicine is under tremendous pressure to integrate with Western medical institutions, before its theoretical foundations and philosophy have been completely examined and understood. There is the possibility of losing what is most unique and valuable about this medicine, its unifying philosophy based on yin yang and the wu xing/five phases, and retrieving only the methodology (acumoxatherapy and herbal medicine). There have been strong tendencies in this direction in China, and this medicine is often greatly misunderstood in the West, even while being viewed with admiration. In this article, I will try to communicate what I feel is most essential about Chinese medical theory, and what must be preserved.

Essential principles:

The essential principle is Chinese culture’s relationship to nature and the universe, as expressed in its language and medicine. Chinese medicine is based on natural images applied to the relationship between the microcosm and macrocosm. In classical texts, such as the Huang di nei jing/Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic, the human being is seen as a microcosm of the universe, with relationship to stars and galaxies, rivers and lakes, mountains and forests. The jing/lou channels and connecting vessels, the zang/fu viscera and bowels all have correspondences in the natural and cosmic worlds. Therefore, illness is seen as a loss of balance in the relationship between self and nature.

The life sciences have become more complex in their explanations of human Life phenomena. This has created a technical medicine with advanced specialization based on an ever-growing and changing body of data. Manfred Porkert states in Chinese Medicine Debased: “Biomedicine deals with somatic disorders, pathological changes of the body which are a result of past dysfunctions.” However, “a majority of disorders are pathological changes of vital manifestations” that precede somatic disorders by days, months or years. These are observed in disturbances of behavior, sleep cycles, fatigue, digestion, and many other functional changes. It is the job of Chinese medicine to cure pathological changes by restoring a dynamic equilibrium to body, mind and life, removing the potential for serious disease or morphology.

Chinese medicine is dependent on the development and application of human resources and judgment. The senses, intellect and skill of the physician are paramount. Complex technological interventions or diagnostic instruments are not used, so diagnosis and treatment are based on the direct interaction of physician and patient. Chinese medicine can be practiced in any part of the world, with a minimum of tools or expense. This makes it ideal as a ‘third world’ medicine for rural environments and developing nations, as it is easily available, relatively low in cost, and less polluting to the environment.

Although simple technologically, Chinese medical theory and treatment principles are very sophisticated. The jing, the classical source texts, contain profound principles of life and medicine that are universal in scope, and timeless in nature. They contradict the belief that ancient knowledge systems were primitive. On the contrary, a rich archive of medical wisdom that is valuable today has been passed on in a continuous chain, and will enter the new millennium as a dynamic force in medicine. Chinese medicine is ultimately a meditation on humanity, nature and the universe, and heals by teaching us our place in this great dynamic creation.

Zang xiang/visceral manifestation or “orbisiconography,”1 is based on observations by generations of Chinese physicians to cycles of functional systems. Chinese medical texts have always used graphic models of channels, connecting vessels, viscera and bowels to explain functional relationships of the human organism. Unlike biomedicine, Chinese medicine is not based on anatomical data (although it is quite capable of relating to this data). On the contrary, Chinese medicine has more in common with such modern scientific disciplines as physics and mathematics, which use representational models to describe phenomena that do not necessarily have to be dissected to be a reality. This is a major stumbling block in trying to understand Chinese medicine through the lens of anatomy, physiology, and biology. From a modern perspective, we can see that Chinese medicine provides an informational approach to dynamic phenomena in the human organism, by viewing the intelligent systems that maintain equilibrium. Then, by applying sophisticated regimens in the form of herbal medicine, acumoxatherapy, calisthenics and dietetics, equilibrium can be restored to the system. All Chinese medical diagnostics and therapeutics are designed to return human life to a state of dynamic balance.

VI. Chinese medicine is not only a medical profession. In order to be a successful physician or patient, one has to practice a disciplined and healthy way of life. This includes spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical development. One has to develop one’s personal resources and grow as a human being in order to remain healthy, or atrophy will set in. To be a physician of Chinese medicine is a daily practice of self-development and service to others. Studying medical texts sharpens the intellect. Practicing medicine and diagnosis sharpens the senses, and develops judgment in situations that demand the best of a practitioner. To cure illness and restore health requires meditation on the universal forces that affect human life: weather, season, cosmic cycles, emotions, stages of life, family dynamics, and agriculture. And ultimately, the physician must develop love and compassion for one’s patients, and treat them as if they were his or her friends or family. It is difficult to aid the healing process in a person that one dislikes.

Chinese medicine is unique in its recognition of the factors of time and space in determining diagnosis and treatment. In the Shang Hang Lun, disease patterns are seem as progressions through time with transformation of symptoms as patterns of disharmony move from the exterior to the interior. Each of the six channels has disorders with times of day of aggravation and remission, numbers of days from contraction to resolution. In the Huang Di Nei Jing/Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic, several chapters are devoted to wu yun lin qi xue shuo/five movements and six qi theory, a theory of chronobiology,2 the influence of natural and cosmic cycles on human health. The Nan jing/Classic of Difficulties and Zhang zhong jing/Classic of the Central Viscera teach how to prognose life, death, and the development and remission of diseases through pulse diagnosis. The goal of classical Chinese diagnosis is to predict change and transformation of disease processes in progressions of time, depth and quality.

Chinese medical diagnostics and therapeutics are based on a rational system utilizing the binary logic of yin-yang differentiation. This is further differentiated into five phases, six channels or divisions, and other diagnostic characterizations that can theoretically approach rather complex dimensions. Pulse diagnosis is based on this same logical system, allowing for very detailed diagnostic parameters and treatment. This rational system runs through acupuncture theory, herbal prescription theory, external and internal medicine, and all branches of diagnosis and treatment. This allows for a unified approach to medicine, so that all branches of medicine can be understood beginning with the same basic logic. While there are specialties in Chinese medicine, one will never get lost in one specialty without being able to understand another branch of the medicine.

Conclusion: Chinese medicine truly deserves the attention it has received. It will only survive as a viable complement to biomedicine; however, if it is studied, practiced and transmitted in a complete form, with accurate translation and open-minded examination of its core teachings.

1. Zang xiang/visceral manifestation: The manifestation of the activity of viscera and bowels (and construction, defense, qi, blood, fluids, essence and spirit) in outward signs; the Chinese medical physiology of the human body in which the viscera are understood to play a central role. (Wiseman/Feng, Clinical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, pg. 656.

2. Chronobiology: the science of the influence of time through natural and cosmic cycles on living organisms. This is an area of study in biomedicine as well, including discussions on circadian rhythms, diurnal and nocturnal cycles of disease and remission, efficacy of medical treatments at different times of day or night.